Flying saucers were the last thing on Michael Swiney's mind when he climbed into the cockpit of an RAF Meteor VII on the afternoon of 21 October 1952. Swiney was a staff instructor based at the RAF's Central Flying School at Little Rissington, Gloucestershire, where his job was to provide tuition to RAF and Navy pilots. Seated behind him was his student for the day, David Crofts, a Royal Navy lieutenant. What began as a run-of-the mill exercise was soon to turn into one of the most dramatic experiences in Swiney's flying career.

"They came up with a table of pictures of all the shapes of UFOs that have ever been recorded - about 50 ...The study of UFOs
may reveal some new forms of energy to us,or at least bring us closer to a solution.
General Vasily Alexeyev
Russian Air Force -Space Communications Centre

"At the time immediately I didn't feel frightened. I did subsequently feel that we were looking at something that really we shouldn't be seeing. And I remember being told on landing that I looked fairly shaken, almost as if I had seen a ghost."

Air Commodore Michael Swiney O.B.E. (RAF Retired)

"I remember doing the 35,000 foot check and Mick, who was in the front seat, said: 'David, did you have anything to drink at lunchtime?' and I said: 'No, why?' and he said: 'Is your oxygen on?' and I replied: 'Mick, we've just done the 30,000 foot check and you checked with me that your oxygen was alright and I checked with you that my oxygen was alright,' then he said: 'Well, look at that - straight ahead!'

"Mick [who was in the front seat] put his head to one side and I looked straight through the D-window and there were three dots ahead, [initially] they wouldn't have been bigger than my thumb-nail at arm's length and there were certainly three of them. I looked up from time to time and saw they were approaching and getting further and further apart. What I saw looked like the bottom of a stemmed glass. They were lens shaped, like an ellipse and the sun was behind them, and there was no cloud at that height. It was impossible to tell the size of them or how far away they were.

"I was thinking all the time that I've got to make this a good exercise and didn't want to muff it by looking around at extraneous things, but Mick kept talking about them and saying that he thought they were UFOs so I thought: 'Oh yes, well let's go after them!' thinking well now we can stop doing the exercise and we can officially say we are off the hook. But he didn't, he said: 'Oh Lord no, don't you remember something that happened on the West Coast of America where a couple of pilots went after one of these things and they all got vapourised and they have never been seen since.' I then asked him what he intended to do, and with that he called Air Traffic Control at Little Rissington and said what he could see and within a very short time he said: 'I have control', he turned the aircraft and we headed back to base."

Royal Navy Lieutennant David Crofts

Swiney had also kept a copy of his flying log book for 1952, which supported his story (see Figure 13, page 101). Under Exercise 18 an entry read: '(SAUCERS!) 3 "Flying Saucers" sighted at height.

When in 2001 Swiney attempted to obtain a copy of his original report to Air Ministry he was told by the MoD that it had 'most likely' been destroyed. However, research at the PRO revealed an entry in the ORB of the Central Flying School, dated 21 October 1952, which read:

'Flight Lieutenant M. J. E. SWINEY, instructor, and Lieutenant B. CROFTS, R.N., student, sighted three mysterious "saucer shaped objects" travelling at high speed at about 35,000' whilst on a high level navigation exercise, in a Meteor VII. Later, A.T.C.C. Gloucester reported radar plots to confirm this, but Air Ministry discounted any possibility of "extra terrestrial objects". '

The evidence suggests that in addition to the testimony of the two pilots, two separate radars had tracked an UFO and this resulted in the scramble of interceptor aircraft. How could the Air Ministry claim, so quickly after the events, that they had 'discounted any possibility' of extraterrestrial objects? Where are the records of the official investigation into this incident that were evidently seen both by Sir Peter Horsley and by Air Commodore Swiney as recently as the 1970s? If there was nothing to hide, then why was this incident kept secret for half a century?